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Chandigarh: Punjab Assembly Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal on Thursday suspended nine opposition Congress MLAs for the day for their unparliamentary behaviour and insulting the Chair of the House, even as treasury benches in unison expressed their displeasure over the "mild punishment".
The entire ruling SAD-BJP members were not pleased with the Speaker's verdict and repeatedly urged him to take a tough action in consonance with the gravity of what had happened in the assembly yesterday.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Madan Mohan Mittal requested the Speaker to suspend the MLAs for the remainder sittings of the budget session.
The Speaker's action came a day after Punjab Assembly witnessed unprecedented ugly scenes with opposition Congress members throwing papers, books and documents at the Chair and manhandling the marshals alleging their Legislature Party's office was "raided" by police.
MLAs suspended for the day are Jagmohan Singh Kang, Charanjit Singh Channi, Raja Amarinder Singh Warring, Rana Gurjit Singh, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Hardyal Kamboj, Kuljit Nagra, Balbir Singh Sidhu and Parminder Singh Pinky.
As the proceedings of the House began, the Speaker at the very outset took a serious note of the Congress MLA's behaviour in the Assembly yesterday.
He said he had never seen such kind of behaviour in the Assembly.
The Speaker also took exception to the Chair being occupied by one of the Congress MLAs and termed this act as "an insult to the Chair" of the House.
"I hope that in future, such acts are not repeated," he said while requesting the suspended MLAs to leave the assembly.
However, pandemonium prevailed in the House as Congress members stalled the proceedings for the speaker's action against some of their member's forcing, Atwal to adjourn the House for one hour.
CLP leader Sunil Kumar Jakhar protested the suspension of the Congress MLAs from the House and also left the Assembly along with the suspended MLAs.
When the house re-assembled after an hour adjournment, the Speaker suspended the question hour for some another day. The Congress MLAs did not join the proceedings of the assembly.
